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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29517447">Past Premises</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLifeAndLiesOfFerns/pseuds/SabineElectricHeart'>SabineElectricHeart (TheLifeAndLiesOfFerns)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff, Insecurity, Light Angst, Romance, Threats of Violence, War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 16:30:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,602</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29517447</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLifeAndLiesOfFerns/pseuds/SabineElectricHeart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sylvain has a strict view of the world. His professor challenges it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sylvain Jose Gautier/My Unit | Byleth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Past Premises</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sylvain Gautier said he would never trust anyone because humans were self-serving and fundamentally flawed in all capacities.</p><p>That changed with Byleth Eisner.</p><p>Truth be told, the nobleman did not really believe in the inherent goodness in his fellow human. He is not <em>blind</em>, as a general rule, people just sucked. They were useless unless you could use them for something, and so it was better to find a way to exploit their weaknesses and harness their strengths, kicking them to the curb before you were kicked yourself.</p><p>Of course, he has been friends with Felix for so long, he cannot help but exclude his single-minded partner-in-arms from this narrative. He supposes he also feels a dutiful fondness for Dimitri, and he would feel rather irritated if someone took advantage of the naiveté of Mercedes or Ashe or even Annette and Ingrid, but still. Exploit for not being exploited.</p><p>However, despite not feeling any particular allegiance or shared history, he came to found out that Byleth was different. She changed his outlook in life.</p><p>Sylvain treated her very differently, and not different in the same deferent but contemptuous manner he treated Manuela and Hanneman. He genuinely respected and cherished his professor; in a way he cannot remember ever doing with absolutely anyone.</p><p>He wonders why. Maybe it was because of how she treated their class. She was patient and accommodating of all their idiosyncrasies, but knew exactly when and where to press them to be better. She was a stabilizing presence for Dimitri, she helped Mercedes harden and Felix soften, she encouraged Dedue to face his trauma, encouraged Annette to mend fences with her estranged father and Ashe to face the realities about his patron.</p><p>The professor even managed to make Sylvain himself make peace with what happened to Miklan, a feat so great they should commemorate her a statue in Fhirdiad.</p><p>It was hard to find much fault with Byleth Eisner, and the nobleman found himself increasingly unwilling to try.</p><hr/><p>Sylvain Gautier said he would never care about what anyone thought of him, because fuck them, thank you very much.</p><p>That changed with Byleth Eisner.</p><p>When she had shown up with absolutely no warning, she turned everything on its head, which was quite rude, in his opinion. He was very used to being fawned over by girls, but she revealed quickly that she was cut from a very different cloth.</p><p>What she found interesting was not what most girls found interesting, probably forged on a life of violence and want and whatever happens when you are raised on a mercenary band, and that immunity to the generally feminine proclivities included Sylavin himself.</p><p>He never had to try before to make anyone like him, it just seemed to come with the territory. His Crest did the heavy-lifting for him, and the Gautier charm and beauty closed the deal. The few people who did not like him, drops in the ocean that they were, were not worth his time.</p><p>Byleth was different for some reason, though. There was something about her that made him self-conscious and awkwardly aware of things he said or did that she might frown upon.</p><p>Goddess, frown, she did. She found him to be exceedingly arrogant, sexist, and in possession of an exceptionally large ego. She was thoroughly unimpressed by the way he used his status as a crest-having nobleman to manipulate people, especially women, into doing things for him.</p><p>They were little things, mind you, like getting a snack from the kitchens or covering for him during a detention, he was not so uncouth into manipulating naïve girls into his bed, but it made no difference to her. She thought it was particularly deplorable the way he approached his interactions with girls.</p><p>“You present as if you feel like they owe you a date just because you lowered yourself to look at them.” She had said with cold judgement one evening. “It is frankly disgusting.”</p><p>He felt downright chastised, and, much to his shock, he felt extremely guilty and embarrassed that he did anything to appear like a filthy philanderer to her.</p><p>It was then he realized he cared about what Byleth Eisner thought of him. He cared a lot.</p><hr/><p>Sylvain Gautier never believed that he was manipulative.</p><p>That changed with Byleth Eisner.</p><p>Sylvain tended to believe he was better than everyone else. That made it pretty effortless to hone in on easy targets for particularly exploitative manipulations, because he would feel little guilt. Some of these services were mostly benign and turned out fine in the end, with only mild humiliation or a few hours of work lost on the part of the victim.</p><p>However, sometimes, he disregarded every conceivable limit.</p><p>There is no way for a man to know when was the last time the woman has bled, and so Sylvain usually trusted whatever his bedfellow would tell him. He tried to take his own precautions, pulling out and finishing on his hand, but there were times that he loses himself in the act.</p><p>One such instances, with a particularly cunning kitchen maid, had her saying she was pregnant with his child. So, he took the easy way out and tried to vanish from her reach. To that end, he manipulated Ashe to ceding his bedroom. It was fine, the archer was more than glad for helping his classmate, even if it meant having to sleep on the entrance hall and dressing at the sauna changing room. It was all very benign.</p><p>Byleth, however, did not think it was benign at all. In fact, she made it a point to single him out in the dormitories when it was the most occupied in order to humiliate him as an almost-punishment.</p><p>“Serves you right!” She had said scathingly, while throwing him out of the bedroom by the ears and throwing his clothes out the door, the entire academy coming around to see. “You do not think of anyone but yourself. You do not care who you hurt as long as you get your piece of the pie out of it. You're lonely on the inside, and some day, you will end up actually <em>being</em> alone. Who would want to be friends with someone they can never be sure is trustworthy? Pathetic!”</p><p>Sylvain <em>was</em> humiliated, and at first, he was infuriated. She had no clue what he was like and who he was, so her accusations and presumptions were baseless. With time, though, he slowly began to admit she may have been right. Ashe really should not have let him take over his room, and regardless of any moral failings of the kitchen maid, what they did took them both, and he had a responsibility to foot.</p><p>Finally, Sylvain started to feel guilty. He compensated his classmate with a new, illuminated copy of Loog and the Maiden of Wind, and tried to assume paternity of the kitchen maid’s unborn child, at least for the time being, but his professor had the forethought of taking her to an exam and Manuela concluded she was not pregnant at all.</p><p>He realized Byleth was the first girl to ever stand up to him, not counting his own horrible mother. No one ever dared talk to the heir of Margraviate Gautier the way Byleth had spoken to him that night, and he had to admit he thought that that was pretty admirable. While he did not necessarily enjoy being humiliated in front of the entire high society in Fódlan and surroundings, it did make an impact.</p><p>Not long after, he began to notice the way the light would catch her eyes during dusk, turning them from sea blue to almost green. He noticed that, in the morning, she put a thin layer of butter on her toast followed by an equally thin layer of jam, which she would eat while reading the Acta Archiepiscopae, the daily publication of the acts and orders of the Church of Seiros. He noticed that before morning classes she would put two pins in her unruly hair to keep them away from her face, and by lunch, they would have already broken free without her notice. She always noticed after lunch, though, and instead she would put her hair in a bun on top of her head. He noticed that her hands were prone to chap in the cold, and that the balm she used smelt like peppermint.</p><p>Most of all, he noticed that, now, when she looked at him, he felt nervous and his heart would speed up. Most peculiar.</p><p>With a snicker, Ingrid told him that what he had were feelings for Byleth Eisner. Blinking owlishly, Sylvain realized she might be right.</p><hr/><p>Sylvain Gautier had never once been turned down by a girl he had asked out, not when they were fresh conquests and not him revisiting those girls particularly talented in bed. Not once.</p><p>That changed with Byleth Eisner.</p><p>The first time Sylvain asked Byleth out, she thought it was a joke, and he could not believe it. Any other girl would have swooned just because he was talking to her, but not Byleth.</p><p>She thought the whole idea was hilarious, preposterous really. Her outrageous response? A flat no! She turned him down flat and Sylvain was not prepared to approach a situation like that, because it simply was not done.</p><p>The second time Sylvain asked Byleth out, she had the audacity to get irritated with him. Irritated! The nerve! She acted as though he were a gnat that kept flying around in her face and one that always came back, no matter how hard she tried to shoo it away.</p><p>The third time Sylvain asked Byleth out, she was well tired of his persistence and yelled at him to leave her be.</p><p>“This is highly inappropriate, and even if it were not, I have no interest or intention of ever going out with the likes of you.” She had raved with a look of utter contempt on her face. “You are not to be trusted, Sylvain Gautier, and I am not a fool.”</p><p>Needless to say, he was speechless. He began to realize that he was turning into a stupid character from a stupid novel like Loog and the Maiden of Wind, and then became depressed because his only options at that moment were to either become a brood like Dimitri or an ingénue like Ashe, and neither seemed particularly enticing.</p><p>He also realized he would do just about anything, within reason, to make Byleth Eisner like him and, hopefully, date him.</p><hr/><p>Sylvain Gautier said he never gossiped, and that gossip was "women's talk".</p><p>That changed with Byleth Eisner.</p><p>Sylvain never really cared for propriety, but if there was something that he begrudgingly respected was privacy and self-determination. Gossip was just uncouth. However, he was determined to find out what made Byleth tick, but he would never figure it out by talking to her, and so some recognition could not be beneath him.</p><p>It was not that he did not want to talk to her, but she was so disturbingly stoic and cagey about her own life, it made him shudder with unease. The only moments she showed genuine emotion was when her students needed support, and in his case, this usually translated to exasperation and tough love. When he really thought about it, he was not sure why he actually liked her when he knew next to nothing about her, but the heart wants what the heart wants, he had mused with an internal dramatic sigh.</p><p>Sylvain decided that in order to discover what made Byleth Eisner, Byleth Eisner, he would have to, ugh, gossip. It pained him to have to stoop to gossiping and eavesdropping. He dearly hopes he is not found out, if not for his pride, for the absolute ass-kicking he would receive from his professor dearest.</p><p>He targeted the girls of his class, specifically Mercedes, Annette and Ingrid, approaching them one day to ask them about her. He realized right away that that was a big mistake. Not only were they unwilling to talk about Byleth, they took advantage of the opportunity of actually speaking to Sylvain face-to-face by descending upon him like wrathful harpies to berate him for consistently badgering her. Needless to say, he never tried that one again.</p><p>After a very regretful drunken tryst with Manuela trying to extract information, Sylvain decided his best course of action was to use magic and his sneaking abilities to listen in on his professor’s conversations. He did not really want to do it because he felt like it just proved Byleth's point, but he was desperate at that point and was almost begging on his knees to Jeralt for if only a kernel of information.</p><p>During one particular instance, he hit a jackpot. Dorothea and Byleth were talking about nobles, Sylvain in more specific terms, in what was clearly meant to be a private conversation.</p><p>“I might be more inclined to give Sylvain a chance if he was not that much of an entitled bastard.” Byleth had said. “I wonder if this is consequence of his Crest.”</p><p>Sylvain would not deny that he was hurt by that. He wanted Byleth to like him, and wanted her to see someone good and noble and loyal.</p><p>It was then and there that Sylvain Gautier swore he would change Byleth Eisner's mind, and to prove he meant it, he vowed it on the Goddess Tower on the monastery’s anniversary a few Moons later.</p><hr/><p>Sylvain Gautier said he would never change for anyone or anything.</p><p>That changed with Byleth Eisner.</p><p>After witnessing that conversation between Dorothea and Byleth, Sylvain worked incredibly hard to be a person his professor would be proud to know. He became responsible and tried to carry his own weight around the monastery. He became more respectful of the girls who approached him, and he never approached any on his own. He also really tried to deflate his huge head and treat people like they were his equals.</p><p>The first time he saw Byleth's shocked reaction to the new him, he did a jig inside his head because he knew his personality shift was something that she never thought he was capable of.</p><p>The longer he spent working towards change, the more impressed she became, though she would not care to admit it.</p><p>Sylvain had to confess that, at first, he only tried to change so that Byleth's opinion of him would improve. However, he found that as time went on, it became easier and more rewarding to help others and treat them with respect. He realized that, before, people told him what he wanted to hear so that he would like them. Becoming more approachable made it easier to foster real friendships instead of fake ones, which he, begrudgingly, admitted was better than being worshipped.</p><p>Still, it did funny things to Sylvain's heart to see Byleth begin to smile at him instead of sigh disapprovingly.</p><p>The nobleman vowed that he would keep trying to prove himself to Professor Eisner, so he never had to be without her smile again.</p><p>Sylvain Gautier, deep down, never believed he needed anyone.</p><p>That changed with Byleth Eisner.</p><p>At the ripe old age of twenty, Sylvain started getting restless. With the growing discord that was blooming from the approaching war, he began to feel useless and like he wanted to get in on the action.</p><p>It could have been that the opposing side mostly consisted of those he had broken bread for years at the monastery, or that Dimitri’s leadership was questionable at best and disastrous at worse, or that he could sense impending danger like electricity across his skin. It could have been a combination of the it all.</p><p>Either way, his mood was generally poor and Byleth found herself to be taking the brunt of his temper more often than not. After a while, she could not bear to continue shouldering his anger as if she were the cause of it and, as a result, she left him. With reason, as he could not find fault in leaving someone who has, repeatedly, threatened to kill and/or force upon marriage to her for her Crest.</p><p>Not fifteen days later, the Archbishop turned into a dragon and ate her whole, presumably killing her.</p><p><em>Fuck</em>.</p><p>Sylvain' world tilted on its axis and it felt like he was dying. For months, Byleth had been the anchor he had tethered himself to, and she had kept him afloat when he felt like he was going to drown.</p><p>His professor had been the reason he became the man that he was, so who was he without her? When they were together, in the deceivingly idyll of school, he had taken for granted her unwavering presence in his life and with her gone, he realized how much he truly needed her, how much he had always needed her.</p><p>After the war began, Sylvain assumed the traditional duties of Margrave Gautier and patrolled the border with Sreng, making it clear to those filthy barbarians that they would not be able to catch the kingdom unprotected.</p><p>He cried himself to sleep for a week straight when he came home on leave one day to a regretful Alois, who carried with him the Lance of Ruin, found amongst the wreckage of the monastery. It had been so surreal until that point, but holding the weapon he had entrusted to her care in his hand was a physical reminder that she was really gone.</p><p>It took a literal slap in the face from Ingrid to wake him up out of his funk. She took no mercy on him, and pointed out how pathetic he had become in Byleth's absence.</p><p>“She died defending us, protecting us, you useless waste of space!” The blonde knight barked at her former classmate. “She died so that megalomaniac dictator with <em>horns</em> would not kill us all! The least you can do is get off your fat, smelly arse and do something about it!”</p><p>Even though he took no pleasure in hearing that his beloved died so he could live, Ingrid’s speech reminded him that, while the professor would not be coming back, he had to act as if she were. To birth upon a world where she would be glad to live in.</p><p>So he did, for four long years, until the day Dimitri had made them promise to return to the monastery. For a blessing of the Goddess, Byleth never came back on a promise and miraculously attended their reunion, too, coming back into the Blue Lions’ fold, from where she should have never left.</p><p>After looking at each one of them in awestruck appraisal, she hugged Sylvain tightly. He was not sure who cried harder then.</p><p>He would never take Byleth Eisner for granted ever again.</p><hr/><p>Sylvain Gautier never really cared for romance.</p><p>That changed with Byleth Eisner.</p><p>On the day that Byleth <em>finally</em> agreed to go out with him, in the middle of a terrible, terrible war, Sylvain immediately grabbed his horse and did a parade around the monastery and the village below to share on his happiness, all while whooping and cheering.</p><p>It was not until he returned to the stables and placed his horse on a pen for the page to feed it that he realized he had absolutely no idea about what to do in a relationship.</p><p>Sylvain never had a girlfriend before. He had plenty of casual flings, but he never made an effort to stick with one girl because, frankly, he just did not care for the idea. However, with Byleth, the things he felt for her ran far deeper than anything he had ever experienced before, so deep that he entered entirely unexplored territory.</p><p>He was <em>terrified</em>. He is a good-for-nothing, after all, he had no business with being in love.</p><p>To be perfectly honest, he got such a case of cold feet that he very nearly broke things off with Byleth before they had even begun, but, with a firm word from Ingrid, some eye rolls from Felix, and several incredulous squeaks from Mercedes, Sylvain finally calmed down and came to his senses. He realized he had something special with his former professor, and while it was scary, it was also exhilarating and exciting.</p><p>Regardless, Sylvain did not know how to do the whole romance thing. Do girls even actually like flowers and candy, he had wondered. He came to the conclusion that he had no choice but to ask Dorothea, despite being quite frightened by the prospect of being chased around by an angry swordwoman or worse, laughed off the monastery.</p><p>In the end, he was extremely grateful that he did, because he was completely off base. He figured he should have known better, since Byleth had been defying expectations ever since he met her. After taking her to a horseback stroll through the woods around the monastery, they had a nice picnic by a pond, followed by a few matches of checkers.</p><p>He knew he did the right thing when, upon returning to the dormitories, Byleth turned and beamed at him.</p><p><em>She could weaponize that smile</em>, he had thought as his heart arrested in his chest and his palms started sweating. <em>She's going to kill me some day.</em></p><p>One night, a year into their relationship, as he stared at her while she was sleeping on his chest, he knew with certainty that Byleth Eisner was one of the best things that had ever happened to him.</p><hr/><p>Sylvain Gautier would never admit to being scared, ever.</p><p>That changed with Byleth Eisner.</p><p>As the war continued to strengthen around them, Byleth and Dimitri were repetitively called away for missions due to their unique skill sets, and Sylvain was sick with worry for his girlfriend and crazed monarch. It was a constant source of stress, and at times, he could not even stomach eating.</p><p>While the attack on Enbarr advanced to a glorious closing act, Dimitri returned from his latest mission to the Imperial Palace with Edelgard’s head on his left hand and a maniacal laugh on his lips. Byleth did not return at all.</p><p>When Sylvain heard the news, he had thrown up because he knew the outcome could not possibly be good.</p><p>The Blue Lions became increasingly more agitated the longer Byleth was gone, and after a month and a half missing, the Church gravely made the decision to pronounce her missing, presumed dead once more.</p><p>The news devastated her former students, but none other more than Sylvain, who reverted into a shell of a man once again. He never imagined he could feel devastation beyond what he had felt when the green-haired woman disappeared for the first time, but this certainly trumped that feeling a hundred times over.</p><p>Sylvain could not help but to think that the more you have, the more painful it is to lose. Six years ago, he lost a professor, now, he lost the love of his life. He could not stop picturing the little girl with green spike hair like hers and amber eyes like his. He had the image of a tranquil life up north, of days of horse-riding and peacekeeping and nights of devoted love underneath thick furs burned into the back of his eyelids.</p><p>Most of all, as he fingered the plain Gautier box holding a simple band with a simple stone. He could not stop imagining what it would have been like being able to say <em>I love you, Lady Gautier</em> before they went to sleep every night and as he woke up next to her every morning.</p><p>It was a stormy night when a dark figure entered the Royal Palace of Fhirdiad. The Blue Lions were gathered in preparation for the peace talks that would begin to be held amongst the Kingdom and the former Alliance and Imperial noble houses. It was concerning, as every guest was accounted for, and no one was supposed to waltz into the King’s residence so inconspicuously.</p><p>However, when Byleth limped through the banquet hall door and slumped against the door frame, thoroughly ragged and covered in scratches, bruises, and blood, it turned into pandemonium. Sylvain felt like the air had been sucked from his lungs as his legs gave way beneath him, and he no longer felt like he was inside his own body.</p><p>For the first time since she went missing, the newly-anointed margrave sobbed until he was physically unable to cry anymore.</p><p>It took several weeks for Byleth to fully recover, and almost an entire year for Sylvain to let her out of his sight. While it left her thoroughly rankled, after a while she understood that he was just scared and let the issue lie.</p><p>The experience was something he never wanted to relive for a third time, and it taught him a valuable lesson. Life is short.</p><p>Even though they had not talked much about the future and she was completely blindsided, Byleth Eisner said yes when Sylvain proposed.</p><hr/><p>For his entire life, Sylvain Gautier never believed he would have true purpose or meaning in his empty life.</p><p>That changed with Lady Byleth Gautier… and Cordelia Gautier, his two girls and the absolute centre of his entire universe.</p><p>Following the war and Edelgard’s defeat, Sylvain married Byleth in a small ceremony surrounded by only close friends in their new territory. Alois was entrusted with giving away the bride, which he did while crying obnoxiously, and Dimitri was to officiate.</p><p>A little over a year later, Byleth bounced her own daughter around their large, northern manor, covered in furs and shivering with the winter cold, but always so very happy to be there.</p><p>She did not notice and would not know for several years, but Sylvain filled up at least an entire sketchbook of renditions of just her and Cordelia. Every so often, he would secretively look at the pictures and smile to himself, letting the warm feeling in his chest fill his entire body.</p><p>Years later, Sylvain would look back on his life with his wife and feel content. His daughter would be worried about leaving so far south to Garreg Mach for school, after her magic aptitudes did not warrant an acceptance to the academy in Fhirdiad. Her mother would assure her it did not matter where she would go, they would be always with her, and she would glare at Sylvain when he would jokingly whisper behind his hand, “As long as it isn’t Enbarr”.</p><p>Cordelia would end up being as intelligent as her mother and a bit of a heartbreaker like her father, much to Sylvain' displeasure. <em>Where's my lance when I need it?</em>, He would think with a glower. In the end, she would settle, shockingly, on Lady Varley’s son and moved permanently into Imperial territory, which pained her father so, but he was happy if she was happy.</p><p>As the years passed them by, they brought children, grandchildren, godchildren, fortune and happiness beyond belief. For their entire lives, every so often with adoration in her still-green eyes, Byleth would murmur to him, “I love you. Thank you for the opportunity to live out this wonderful life.”</p><p>Sylvain Gautier had had a lot of never’s in his life, of denials and ordeals. It took Byleth Gautier (née Eisner) to change everything for the better. After so many years chasing the next high, he was pleased in his staunch belief that there was not a single experience he wishes he had had, and that is the most important thing for him.</p>
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